HP Pavillion tx2500z review

Sep 29, 2008
• tablet pc and review

This is named as HP Pavillion Entertainment PC. I can tell you that it really is what HP wants it to be. Even though it is quite a lot like Tablet PC, it just deserves to call Entertainment PC better. Getting to know this series a bit. It started at HP tx1000 which is based on AMD Turion X2 platform with a swivel screen & touch, passive digitizer, as a plus. I don't know that much detail about this, then later HP decided to add a Wacom active digitizer to this series and named as tx2000. I think that's the only significant new thing. Later on, AMD has released PUMA platform: New Turion X2 Ultra (faster) together with new integrated display card--ATi Radeon HD3200. That's going to be real significant performance boost, especially in gaming area. The question is whether the worst area of AMD platform, power consumption, improve? It's hardly to believe getting better performance and lower power consumption at the same time. You will see later on.

I have 2 systems of this model; one with the normal configuration and another one with almost max-out everything. You will see what you will get from extra bucks upgrading it as well.

CPU

AMD Turion X2 RM-70 (2.0GHz)

AMD Turion Ultra ZM-86 (2.4GHz)

Operating System

Vista Home Premium 32-bit

Display

12" WXGA (1280x800) Multi-Touch Glossy finished Screen

Memory

2GB (2*1GB) PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM

Graphic card

ATi Radeon HD3200

Chipset

AMD 780G + ATi SB700

Hard Drive

250GB 5400rpm SATA

320GB 5400rpm SATA

CD/DVD drive

SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support

Networking

802.11G, Gigabit LAN

Extra

Webcam, Array Mic, WMC remote

Webcam, Array Mic, Fingerprint, WMC remote

Battery

6-cell battery (53 Wh)

8-cell battery (73 Wh)

Hard Drive

250GB 5400rpm SATA

320GB 5400rpm SATA

Dimension (LWH)

8.82" x 12.05" x 1.23-1.52"

Weight (lbs)

4.59

4.7

Power adapter

65W (PA-1650-02H)

Price

$699

$904

What surprise me a lot is adapter is the same as 15" HP laptop and the battery is quite big, even the smallest one. As I know, it would not provide enough juice for even 3 hours. Will see if this is true. Here is some photos before getting to build & design:-